This blog originally appeared on the website of the Interaction Institute for Social Change.   “Connections create value. The social era will reward those organizations that realize they don’t create value all by  themselves. If the industrial era was about building things, the social era is about connecting people, ideas and things.” – Nilofer Merchant (entrepreneur, business strategist, author)   Our new Communications Manager, Sandra Herrera, asked a great question the other day: “Why is network weaving needed now?” She wasn’t offering this as a doubtful challenge, but to help us to hone our messaging around why more people should consider the power of tending to connectivity...

  A version of this blog also appears on the Alliance magazine website.    “What will it take to build a global civil society and funding system based on new ways of deciding and doing, that harnesses and mobilizes solidarity, money and other resources in ways that centre equity, justice and flourishing lives for all?”   This was the central question at the heart of the #ShiftThePower Global Summit, which was held just over a year ago in Bogotá and brought together 730 people from 77 countries. Today, as we write this, the recent freeze on USAID funding has cast the entire global funding system...